So school is finished, I’m looking for work. Looks like the plan is to get a job, pay off debts, and then go full in on the bus. It probably won’t be too exciting this year given it will mostly be contracted out. Engine in-frame rebuild and suspension, mainly. As for the bus design, the mini-split is out in favor of a chiller. Lead acid batteries are out in favor of lithium LiFePO 4 batteries. This means double the capacity for house battery bank in half the weight and volume. In doing that, it makes some other things a lot easier to do as well. The massive area which was going to be batteries on the right side of the bus is now going to be the home of the chiller unit. I’ve also decided to very much look into building my own fridge for variety of reasons. Lighting is now going to be LED rather than florescent, saving power budget and space. The washer/dryer might change as well given the mini-split condenser is no longer limiting height. As for the roof raise, I have now settled on the joining method being primarily plug welds. Appropriate rivets ended up being more expensive, weaker, and more prone to rust when all is said and done.

The current state of the bus is that no noticeable new rust has occurred thanks to timely touch up paint before storage and keeping eye on it. It is covered in algae or something, but a good pressure washing will take care of that.

With this year basically being engine and suspension, that puts the roof raise at the start of 2018. Upon finishing up with that comes the exterior repainting. I will also be picking up an HTP Pro Pulse 200 MIG Welder. Trying to use a cheap MIG for this job just isn’t going to cut it. Looks like I will also be picking up a water cooled drill press from either Harbor Freight or some used/surplus setup. We’ll see when the time comes.

To charge up the battery and keep the tires healthy, I started up the bus and did a loop around. It has fairly terrible compression right now, same as when I parked it. After it warmed up and I did the loop, I returned it to its parking place, offset a bit from the holes it had sunk into.

Looks like I have the funding to start work on the engine within a month.

The paint has slowly dried to a very nice, very hard surface. There are some place that the paint pooled slightly which have yet to fully dry all the way through, but they are well on their way as well. The next step is the engine work. I anticipate needing to buy $1100 for parts and about that in tools.

Some tools for the engine rebuild have been purchased, though the project is fully halted so far as money is concerned until my future is somewhat more certain.

As the paint is drying FAR slower than I had anticipated due to low 50ºF nights and possibly vapor pressure (fan had a very noticeable impact this afternoon), storing the seats in the bus was a no go. I put up all the windows, shut the doors, and pulled the roof vents down. The 28 (heavy!) seats have been put into the well house I cleaned out earlier for this potential purpose. Turns out they stack up quite nicely, making for a compact tower of up to 8 in an 8′ ceiling room. Three towers of eight, one of six.